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Julia D'angelo Julia D’Angelo The Hudson River Valley Institute Mid-Hudson Artisans from 1880-1940s Fall 2008 Idealism to Realism: An Investigation of Mid-Hudson Artisans from 1880-1940’s Tucked inside the Hudson River Valley, a culturally rich settlement called Woodstock became home to traditional and avant guard American artists alike during the turn nineteenth centuries. Within this town, intellectual idealists Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and Hervey White established artistic communities based on the socialist ideals of John Ruskin, and the work ethic of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The artists of these communities veered from industrialized America in favor of a humble life that fed their creativity. As the stock-market crashed, many of Woodstock’s artists rejoined the greater American community to participate in President Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, recording the history of the Hudson River Valley for decades to come. Through the late nineteenth to mid twentieth century, the artists and intellectuals who congregated in Woodstock would reject, shape, and rejoin America; leaving their unconventional fingerprints on Hudson River Valley’s history. In the eighteenth century, the rural town called Woodstock attracted culture like a magnet tucked in the Catskill Mountains. By geographical chance, Woodstock was on route to back settlements, so residents became tavern keepers for settlers passing through. Those who stayed in the Woodstock taverns brought stories of their travels and native lands, enriching the town an eclectic mix of outside influence. In addition to a varied culture, Woodstock attracted more seasonal residents with mountains, valleys, forests, cliffs, and streams. The small town developed a standing reputation for its glamour and romance, instilled in the Catskills by Washington Irving, Joseph Jefferson, and Thomas Cole. It even bore the famous American fable “Johnny Appleseed,” as well as the 1 of 12 Julia D’Angelo The Hudson River Valley Institute Mid-Hudson Artisans from 1880-1940s Fall 2008 children’s game “London Bridge.” Even more people and ideas were brought by Woodstock’s developing industries in glass making, bluestone quarrying, and woodworking. Based on its geography, crafts industry, and rich cultural reputation, Woodstock became host to idealists, artists, writers, poets and stage people alike.i In the nineteenth century, Woodstock became the site of two significant artistic communities inspired by socialist ideals. In reaction to the dreary reality of the Industrial revolution, European and American intellectuals united under socialism, and artists responded with a sub revolution called the Arts and Crafts Movement. Supporters of the movement revolted against industrial produced products and urbanization by retreating to a humble life of self-sustenance. The Woodstock artist colonies that developed in the early twentieth century were parallel with this revolution. Wealthy, English intellectual Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead funded and established the first of these settlements called the Byrdcliffe colony. Whitehead attended the Harrow School and received his Masters degree at Balliol College, Oxford where he studied under the instruction of John Ruskin. With the socialist influence of Ruskin in mind, Whitehead began to imagine a “social experiment” where people would create beauty with their hands while maintaining the beauty of their minds and bodies through healthy socialist living.ii Although he was born wealthy, the young Whitehead dreamed of being a business-man. The young man had lofty plans to turn the family business of industrialized felt-making to the production of beautiful cloth. After revealing the plan to his less than enthusiastic father, Whitehead set off to Paris where he apprenticed himself to a carpenter to earn a living with his hands. Despite the break between Whitehead and his father, Whitehead was assumed to have made amends by 1880s, when he moved to a 2 of 12 Julia D’Angelo The Hudson River Valley Institute Mid-Hudson Artisans from 1880-1940s Fall 2008 lavish estate in Syria. A year later in 1890, Whitehead moved to Italy and established a career as a writer, translating Dante into modern Italian. In his independent writings, Whitehead infers a sense of dissatisfaction with the current state of society. He wrote profusely of the “ideal community” where people produced there own goods, giving their work a sense of personal purpose.iii When he returned to the United States in the late 1890’s, White married artist Jane Byrd McCall of Philadelphia and settled in California where they had two sons. Within that decade, Whitehead involved himself with people who shared his views of current society. Whitehead was introduced to Hervey White, a free spirited writer who shared his ambition to build an Arts and Crafts colony. Although the men differed in personally and social status, they forged a friendship based on shared ideals. Specifically, they both studied and admired Ruskin and both favored the craft industry over factory- made products. In 1900, Whitehead invited Hervey White to his California estate. The visit resulted in a plan to create a community where craftspeople could live and work together in a self-sufficient community.iv In 1902, Whitehead and White bought five mountainside farms in Woodstock. Although Whitehead funded the 1500 acres of land, he immediately returned to California, leaving White and recruited partner, artist Bolton Brown, to develop the self- sufficient colony. Whitehead’s fundamental absence would mark the beginning of rift between him, and the rest of the Byrdcliffe community. With Whitehead back in California, White and Brown oversaw the construction of the buildings, and farmland. Facilities included furniture building, iron working, weaving, ceramics, and painting. Whitehead contributed by providing talented students with scholarships and dormitories. 3 of 12 Julia D’Angelo The Hudson River Valley Institute Mid-Hudson Artisans from 1880-1940s Fall 2008 As Byrdcliffe began to fill with eclectic teachers and students from all over the country, the colony became the first step in making Woodstock a center for American arts.v Swedish painter Carl Lindin became one of the first inhabitants along with Fritz Van der Loo, an ex-Calvary captain under De Wet in the Boer War. Both were friends of White, whose gregarious and generous personality attracted people of all sorts.vi One of the farms was converted into “the Lark’s Nest,” which Woodstock historian Anita M. Smith described as “a club for highly interesting people” in her first person account of life in Woodstock.vii Smith names and describes the new inhabitants at Byrdcliffe by their name, profession, and personality, when it was worth noting. New teachers included Martin Schutze of the University of Chicago and his wife, painter and photographer Eve Schutze; George Eggers, who would become an art museum director; and Ned Thatcher, who taught medal-work. Other early teachers at Byrdcliffe included, Ellen gates Star, who came from the Hull House to do bookbinding, and Edith Penmann and Elizabeth Hardenvergh who started the pottery program. During this socially explosive time at Byrdcliffe, White met his future wife Vivian Bevans. Bolton Brown described “The Lark’s Nest” as being so full of people getting on each others nerves that it should be called the Wasp’s Nest.viii In its early years, Whitehead called artists to join his Arts and Crafts Colony. In an article published in 1903, Whitehead wrote an article called “A Plea for Manual Work” in which he connects the sanctity of manual work with the newly formed community. “…the joy of a man in the work of his hands,-is not a mere passing satisfaction, but is an element in all sane life.”ix He writes that although the community 4 of 12 Julia D’Angelo The Hudson River Valley Institute Mid-Hudson Artisans from 1880-1940s Fall 2008 was young, it was successfully combining the manual and intellectual life that could flourish in the countryside. Although many eccentric people were attracted to Byrdcliffe, the Whiteheads were not known for their free spirits. Whitehead, a well traveled and wealthy Englishman, believed artists should be under order and direction in order to produce creative work, which many artists found contradictory to the colony’s zeitgeist.x Smith wrote that the nobleman did not communicate on the same level as the artists, often giving comments to the artists that were taken sourly. Mrs. Whitehead’s personality mirrored her husbands. Her tendency toward the romantic was seen by the avant guard artists as old fashioned and annoying. In Woodstock: History and Hearsay,” Smith describes Mrs. Whitehead as having “a vision of the picturesque life remote from reality.” xi The Whiteheads were generous and idealistic, but their strict rules and traditional ideals caused many Byrdcliffe inhabitants to leave. Many of the inhabitants at Byrdcliffe were from a different era and class, each battling the effects of the Industrial revolution and ferociously trying to express themselves through a new kind of art and lifestyle. This social rift proved too deep for many, including founding members Hervey White and Bolton Brown. White decided to create a less rigid socialist arts community of his own. Along with his old friends Fritz van der Loo and Carl Lindin, White left Byrdcliffe and bought several acres of land in Hurley, a settlement right outside of Woodstock. White and his wife Vivian Bevans settled in a preexisting barn. He and his friends began constructing humble dwellings with White’s modest funds. The minimalistic colony called “the Maverick” would mark the next chapter in Woodstock history. 5 of 12 Julia D’Angelo The Hudson River Valley Institute Mid-Hudson Artisans from 1880-1940s Fall 2008 White’s character was also built from his humble beginnings. Born in a sod hut on an Iowa farm in 1866, White spent his childhood taking care of his motherless family tending to the family farm.
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